The White Room (42 page)

The girl had closed her eyes. ‘Dark, swirling, blurred. I mean blurry.'

‘Now paint a picture based on that.'

The colour: how the subject sees himself or herself.

Joanne looked at the painting again, made more notes.

The second question: think of an animal.

Three words: ‘Fierce, scary, attacking.'

The animal. How the subject saw other people.

Joanne made more notes, stood upright. She took another mouthful of wine, stretched her back.

She loved her work. It was the one thing she could lose herself in. The only thing she felt confident enough to give herself to without fear of its being taken away from her.

May 1967. When everything changed. When Jack was taken away from her.

Jack. Seven years dead and she still couldn't let go of him. She doubted she ever would.

Jack. Some days she loved him, some days she hated him. Every day she missed him.

There had been others since then. Of course there had; she was an attractive, fit, healthy young woman. She had physical needs and had found lovers who would take care of them. But not her emotional needs. She let no one take care of them. If relationships stopped being purely physical, if lovers and partners attempted to move on to something more committed, then she would drop them. Find ways to escape. Usually it was work: she would throw herself into it; lose herself in her client's troubles, escape from her own. It was an imperfect solution, she knew, but it worked.

She still felt the wrench from the loss of Jack on a daily basis. Sometimes she examined her own feelings, wondered if he had been everything she remembered him being or whether the relationship was just something she had created out of memory. Something that had been all-consuming, all-pervading only in hindsight. She shouldn't have doubted; she knew the answer.

‘You're in a state of regression,' her Jungian therapist had said at the time. ‘You want to go back to a dream state, right?'

Joanne had nodded, almost totally withdrawn at that point. ‘Yes,' she had said. ‘That's exactly where I want to go.'

In the aftermath of Jack's death, she had come close to losing herself. Drink. Drugs. Casual sex–just to feel wanted, just to feel. Therapy had helped her cope, but it was Isaac who had saved her, who had kept her grounded. His father had been violently taken from him; his mother was a uninterested stranger loudly proclaiming she had problems of her own to take care of. Joanne was all he had, and he needed her. And, she was surprised to find, vice versa.

They had confronted the facts together. The official verdict: arson. The truth, as much as it had been gathered, as much as it could be told, was that Jack Smeaton had gone to confront Johnny Bell about the disappearance of his father, Ralph Bell. Johnny, it emerged at the inquest, was apparently a high-functioning psychopath. He was suspected of several arson attacks on warehouses. Rumours were beginning to circulate that the son had killed the father. Jack had heard these rumours, packed Joanne and Isaac off for their own safety, gone to confront Johnny. Things had escalated. Johnny had attacked Jack, overpowered him, left him to die in the flat when he set fire to it. Jack had shot and wounded Johnny, stopping him from leaving. They had both died together.

The police then received an anonymous tip-off telling them to check the foundations of the Paradise abattoir. They did so. And eventually identified the body of Ralph Bell.

It was too much for Joanne. She sold the house, found a new university course in London, took Isaac with her.

Sharon didn't contest or complain. Not even when Joanne legally adopted Isaac.

Joanne had been honest with the boy. Encouraged him to ask questions about his dad, allowed him to grieve. And in return allowed herself to grieve. She also found the strength to keep going, to shoulder the majority of the burdens. Isaac realized this, responded to this, and the bond between them grew stronger. Like survivors of a plane wreck struggling to return to civilization, they clung together, knowing that separately they would be weaker. They were both wounded, hurt. They had bound each other's wounds, strengthened each other's resolve, and carried each other along. They weren't a conventional family unit. But they found something between them that worked.

Their home was a house deep in the Hertfordshire countryside. It was old, warm. It was the only place that made her feel safe, secure. Despite that, Joanne still felt there was something missing in the house. A space, an unexpected draught of cold air. A ghost.

Joanne took another mouthful of wine, lifted another painting on to the table.

The third question: think of a body of water.

She had had doubts about asking this question, knowing as she did her client's past. The whole country knew her client's past. The case had even penetrated Joanne's life at the time.

Mae Blacklock. Child killer. The most hated girl in Britain.

Mae Blacklock. Devil child. Those unsmiling dark eyes. Satan's eyes. Demon and demonized. Mothers would say to their children at night: go straight to sleep or Mae Blacklock'll come and get you. Kill you. And the children would slip away into shivery sleep.

Mae Blacklock sold newspapers, incited opinion.

Mae Blacklock caused
HATE! HATE! HATE!

The reality, as Joanne had expected, was somewhat different.

Fenton Hall was a special unit for teenage offenders in Hertfordshire. Previously a home to only boys, the unit now contained one girl. Mae Blacklock.

The state hadn't known what to do with her, so they had sent her there. She had been found guilty of murder, therefore some punishment was needed. But also, crucially, some therapy had been considered necessary too. Some method of ascertaining why she had done what she had done.

All the inmates at Fenton Hall had transgressed in some way, either large or small. They were all deemed to have contributory emotional problems. A couple, Mr and Mrs Everett, who tried to look after the children as their own, ran the centre. They lived with the children in the same big house, ate with them around the old pine kitchen table. They behaved, as much as possible, as one large family. It was an approach that, by and large, yielded enormous dividends. Despite some initial reluctance, Mae was responding well to Mr and Mrs Everett's approach. Mae enjoyed art. Joanne was brought in.

Joanne had tried to carry as few preconceptions as possible the first time she had met Mae. She had read reports on Mae's parental background, home life, friends and family. The girl had been guarded in the information she gave away, saying as little as possible. Any question she didn't want to answer was met with the same reply: ask me mam. Since her mother had died some years previously as a result of injuries sustained at the hands of, it was assumed, a disgruntled punter, she knew they wouldn't be able to. From what little they had managed to discover about her mother, it was commonly felt that she was a malevolent influence that Mae was better off without. Given her mother's background and Mae's own highly sexualized nature, though, assumptions were drawn, conclusions reached.

She had found a pretty girl with intelligent, guarded eyes sprawled in an armchair, wearing jeans and a baggy jumper, aiming for nonchalance but watching her intently. Joanne, wearing her brown Biba skirt and complementing dirty pink headscarf, had smiled.

Mae had been initially wary, but it was Joanne's job to deal with children like that. They had talked, realized they were from the same part of the world, which Joanne said was why she had been asked to talk to Mae, and, gradually, week after week, became more relaxed in each other's company.

Joanne worked hard with Mae, teaching her to paint, to draw, showing the value of stillness, observation, interpretation. She found Mae lacking in self-confidence, haunted by nightmares she couldn't specify or consciously articulate. She was a much more complex girl than the tabloids had painted her at her trial, which came as no surprise to Joanne. Mae was a scared and damaged child who desperately wanted to trust, make friends, love and be loved, but whose internal wiring when it came to making these connections was hopelessly tangled.

Joanne tried her best to untangle them but felt herself failing. Mae was the toughest individual Joanne had ever had to deal with. Try as she might, she just couldn't strike up a rapport with the girl. When she thought she was on to something, Mae would clam up, elude her in some way. Mae agreed to take part in the sessions because she thought she might get released earlier if she did. That, she said, was the only reason. Joanne had exhausted all her usual techniques and was ready to do what she rarely did: admit defeat when Mae started asking questions.

‘You got a boyfriend?' Mae said during what Joanne had decided was going to be their final session.

‘No,' Joanne had smiled. ‘I haven't.'

‘Girlfriend?'

Joanne laughed. ‘No.' She looked at the girl. Decided to take a chance. ‘I did have someone once. He meant a lot to me.'

Mae sat forward, became interested. ‘What happened?'

Joanne looked at Mae again. She knew she was breaking Home Office rules by telling the girl anything personal about herself.

‘He died,' Joanne said. ‘Suddenly. In a fire.'

Mae nodded to herself. ‘D'you miss him?'

Joanne sighed. She looked at the floor. ‘Every day.'

And that was the breakthrough. The common ground. They talked on. About loss, about life. And coping. Over the next few weeks Mae opened up more, and Joanne began to read the signs. Little by little Mae was coming to terms with herself and her situation. She gradually admitted that she was ready to move on, to put her old life behind her, to change for the better. That she was ready for more intensive therapy.

Joanne went to work.

‘A body of water,' Joanne had said. ‘Three words.'

‘Deep,' Mae said. ‘Like you might drown. That kind of deep.'

Joanne nodded.

‘Forbidden.'

Joanne nodded.

‘And lonely.'

Then the painting: a deserted lake in a stunted, denuded forest. It looked misty, stagnant. Grey. To the side, hardly in the picture, were some boys. They were dressed in brightly coloured clothes. They seemed wary to venture any further in. They resembled some of the boys Joanne had seen in the unit.

Mae looked exhausted after she had finished, like the effort of painting had cost her something.

‘That looks like a cold, uninviting place,' said Joanne.

Mae shivered. ‘It is. It's horrible.'

‘Those boys look like they want to come nearer.'

‘They're scared. They want to play there. But they're worried. The water might be dangerous. Might have hidden currents. Whirlpools. Might suck them under and they'd never be seen again.'

Joanne was pleased she had decided to do the third question.

The body of water. The subject's sex life.

Joanne made more notes in her book. She straightened up again, checked her watch. As if on cue, the door opened and closed behind her. Footsteps made their way into the room. The sound of a bag being dropped. Joanne turned.

‘Did you win?' she said.

Isaac smiled. ‘Ninety-seven–twenty-four.'

Joanne smiled too. ‘Well done. Did you score?'

Isaac looked at her as if he couldn't believe she had asked the question.

‘What d'you think?' he said. He walked off into the kitchen. ‘What's for dinner? I'm starving.'

‘When are you not?'

Isaac loved his basketball. He was one of the stars on the school team. He was built for it. Tall, like his father had been. But Joanne didn't like to make comparisons. She couldn't avoid it but found it unhelpful. He was nearly sixteen. A strong, handsome man-child. And every day he became less of his father, more of his own person. It was sometimes painful to watch, to see Jack disappear from his son, but it was right, thought Joanne. It was the way it should be.

She followed him into the kitchen.

‘I waited for you coming in to eat.'

‘You shouldn't have done,' he said.

‘I know, but I'm soft that way.'

Isaac smiled. She knew he was pleased she had waited. They both needed the company equally.

She crossed to the oven, began removing a casserole. They sat down to dinner, telling each other about their respective days.

Neil Young in the background telling how in order to give a love you had to live a love.

The car window was open. She felt the warmth of the sun on her arm. The countryside was gearing up for full summer: birds flying in and out of hedgerows, flowers showing off their blooms, trees full of rich green leaves. She sighed, thought, as she often did, how Jack would have enjoyed it.

Al Green was on the car radio: ‘Let's Stay Together'. Joanne sang along. She loved the song. Thought Jack would have done too.

It was to be the last session with Mae, the fourth and final question.

She pulled up at the gates, went through security and she was in Fenton Hall. She would be sad to say goodbye to Mae, but she had other work, other clients. Other lives to get lost in.

Joanne entered the workroom. Mae looked genuinely pleased to see her. Joanne took a moment, smiled at her. She couldn't believe it was the same girl from the sullen, uncommunicative teenager she had met a few months ago.

‘Hey, guess what?' said Mae excitedly.

‘What?'

‘Me sentence is under review. They reckon I've got a good chance of goin' free. Or at least not goin' to prison. Goin' to somewhere like this. You know, for adults.'

Joanne smiled. ‘That's wonderful, Mae.'

‘I think it all depends on how it goes with your report.' Mae smiled. ‘So make it a good ‘un, Jo.'

‘Talk about pressure,' said Joanne. ‘Don't worry. I'll do my best.'

They sat down, ready to start. Joanne delved into her bag, pulled something out.